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Book Review: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire…

But Akaran has its own secrets — thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most. . .including herself.

Oh the feels! I’m still reeling after finishing The Star-Touched Queen but I wanted to write down my thoughts while everything was still fresh.

This book is so rich, filled with Indian folklore and fun to dive into. The pace was good which is always a plus. I had a hard time putting it down. I finished it in two days and it only took me that long because I had to stop reading for annoying things like sleep and taking care of my kids. (Hopefully you know I’m joking here, I love my kiddos. Though stopping to sleep was a bit annoying.)

My heart ached for Maya. She doesn’t know what to believe or which way is up and despite her best efforts for most of the story it seems all her decisions are wrong. I found myself just wishing she would trust Amar. But I do understand how just blindly trusting when she knows there is more going on was not something she could do. Would I have done anything differently in her position?

Amar was also pretty dreamy, which certainly helps the story. Sometimes in books I can’t figure out what the protagonist sees in their love interest but in this case there was a lot to like about Amar. His magical kingdom is one I’d love to explore as well as all the lands in the book. It’s just such a great world filled with great characters.

There is one a negative for me. I have a hard time when a major plot point hinges on two characters not communicating and The Star-Touched Queen relies heavily on this. It makes me want to scream to the book and demand the characters just say what they mean before misunderstandings happen and bad decisions are made.

But in this case the characters don’t say what they mean, they instead make terrible assumptions and of course bad decisions do indeed follow. Sigh…….

That negative aside I really liked this book and I’m looking forward to picking up the sequel, A Crown of Wishes.